To Love Yin and Yang

Chapter 4

Silence began to ensue at what I had said and it seemed as though they had all agreed to have Fearless, the turtle with a blue mask, take point on this. I refused to cower so I simply continued to eat while waiting for his reply. He didn't touch his food but rather seemed to be watching me, most likely gauging how he should answer. He was still silent and watching me when Hothead came back from the kitchen holding several bottles in his hands.

"I actually had beer," I asked incredulous and he gave me such a wicked smile I understood what April had meant. A feminine snort told me she knew exactly how I had reacted. He settled two bottles in front of Casey before taking a seat and sipping the beer. I finally saw the label of the bottles and they were expensive craft beer that I had purchased months ago.

I counted the bottles and my guess was that I maybe had one or two left. These dudes had better appreciate those beers, I thought darkly to myself. "Since you turned down my offer to meet, I decided to come to you," Fearless finally replied and began to eat slowly after his reply. He didn't even look at me or anyone else, just focused on his food. I narrowed my eyes at him. How dare he come to my home, eat my food and still be rude, I thought anger boiling in my veins. As I was going to give him a piece of my mind my phone began to ring. I groaned and swiped to answer.

As it turned out it was one of my customers whom I had painted their motorcycle and was waiting for them to come pick it up. I took a deep breathe and made sure to use my most curtious and professional voice. "Good evening Mr. MacAvoy. I was wondering when you would be calling."

He gave his excuses and asked if the bike could be picked up on Sunday, which meant in two days. I smiled brightly as I made my way out of my dining room to make notes so I could have his bike and my garage looking as pristine as possible. I managed to dig out my calendar from under some magazines and sure enough I had nothing planned on Sunday. We went a little back and forth on a time to meet but we eventually agreed on ten in the morning. Goodbyes were said and I hung up my phone, jotting down the time, name and number to Mr. MacAvoy just in case I would need it.

I started to make a to-do list in my head as I walked back into my dining room and sat back down. April, brimming with curiosity, peered down the table and asked "and just who is this MacAvoy? You've never mentioned him before," she asked with feigned hurt. I sighed and had a bite more of chicken before I answered. "He is one of the two clients I have who hasn't picked up their bikes. He has finally found time to pick it up however so that's what we were discussing... if you must know," I added with feigned superiority.

She nodded and just before I could relax she asked neutrally, "which bike is his, the one with the storm on it or the other one?" I was about to answer her as if I knew when it occurred to me that I hadn't worked on either project in over a month so I wasn't sure. My brows furrowed and I could hear discussions going on around me. The big red dude was apparently having trouble wrapping his head around the fact that I worked on motorcycles, the purple and orange were intrigued with what I could do and on how large of a scale I had worked while Casey joined in with April defending me. Blue was simply silent and let everything unfold. I forgot all about April's question and began to hotly defend myself and my skill set even though I hardly knew anyone besides April and Casey. In the end I brought out my phone to show pictures from my Instagram account. While they perused my work, a quiet began to fall.

I tried to act nonchalant and confident, eating in silence as they went through photo after photo. Fearless, or Leonardo as he was actually named, watched me with the eyes of a hawk and I could feel my act begin to crack. After a while, when I was almost finished with my meal, my phone was being handed back but before I could take it from Genius (Donatello) Raph (Hothead) did something underneath it with his chopsticks that sent it flying into the air. Terrified it would break or land in something liquid I tried to catch it, but he was far too quick for me and he had it in his right hand before I had even stood up.